Book excerpt: A wild new adventure from the author of The Yggyssey—“Pinkwater may be my single most favorite writer in the entire world” (Cory Doctorow). Big Audrey is a girl . . . with cat’s whiskers . . . and sort of cat’s eyes. But is there another cat-whiskered, sort of cat-eyed girl? Big Audrey waves goodbye to her friends Iggy, Neddie, Seamus, and Crazy Wig, in Los Angeles—and hitches a ride with bongo-playing-while-driving Marlon Brando across the country to Poughkeepsie, New York, city of mystery. She finds she has questions needing answers—and a bit of inter-plane-of-existence traveling to do. Readers who love the strange, the offbeat, and the just plain kooky will want to tag along with Big Audrey and her telepathic friend, Molly, on this “vastly entertaining” (Kirkus Reviews) road trip, as they try to solve the mystery of the cat-whiskered doppelganger . . . “Every character they encounter is crazier than the next—a 114-year-old woman named Chicken Nancy; a Catskill Mountain Giant; members of a secret brotherhood from an alternate Poughkeepsie—and every chance encounter leads them to another zany adventure. Mixing the absurd with the profound, Pinkwater’s odd narration will have even the most serious readers laughing at the chaos.” —Booklist